


Blue Light After Lightning

by LaShaRa



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Coldflashwave, F/M, Fluff, Love, M/M, Making Up, Multi, Premonitions, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 06:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10939170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaShaRa/pseuds/LaShaRa
Summary: He can’t tell him. Not now. He can’t give Barry Allen yet another burden to bear. He loves him too much for that. Mick loves him too much for that. And he can’t tell him they love him.





	Blue Light After Lightning

“Who knows, maybe that’s why we get along,” says Len. “You see the good in me, I see the bad in you.” He smirks a little, because that sounded like an innuendo, even by Mick’s standards.

“Maybe,” says Barry. He sounds like he doesn’t really believe it though, like he couldn’t care less either way, and that makes Len want to murder someone, despite his little speech on conserving marine – well, sort of – life back there. He’s spinning around before he can stop himself, jabbing a finger in Barry’s direction. “Piece of advice – stop trying to beat Savitar at his own game. Your goodness…” There, Mick, he does know the word after all, “…is your strength.”

Barry’s looking at him, and there’s something in his eyes that Len doesn’t understand, and that worries him enough on his own, because this is Barry. Sunshiney, brightness-filled Barry, whose eyes are now shifting between despair and cynicism and a last glimmer of hope gone so fast that even Len can’t follow it. Perhaps that’s what keeps him talking, even though he knows he has to get back to the ship, that the others might have missed him, that Mick might be looking for him. “Call me sentimental,” he says. And then he stops, dropping his eyes to Barry’s chest.

He wants to say it. 

He wants to tell him.

He wants to tell him about everything that’s happened, about Mick, about 2046, about the time pirates, about Chronos. About how he lay down in that cell and waited for Mick to kill him. About how the path Barry set him on, whether he knows it or not, the path to saving the world, nearly cost him Mick – he’s not sure that it didn’t, because he might have his hand back and the bruises might have faded from his face, but Mick still has nightmares in the room across the hall and Len still sits against the door all night and in the mornings they look like shit and fight for the coffee but don’t talk to each other. About how he still doesn’t know how he’s going to keep saving the world and saving Mick. How he never again wants to think about how saving the world might cost him Mick for good, the way it may still cost Barry – 

Iris.

Fiancee.

Fiancee who might be murdered in less than twelve hours, even as Barry races to save her.

He can’t tell him. Not now. He can’t give Barry Allen yet another burden to bear. He loves him too much for that. Mick loves him too much for that. And he can’t tell him they love him.

He reaches out and touches Barry’s shoulder. “I think the Flash should remain a hero.”

Barry’s eyes move to his face. His expression is unreadable for a moment and then suddenly he smiles, half-shaking his head, and it’s not the smile Len remembers – it’s a cynical smile, scything briefly in the hard, war-beaten face of a man who is very far from the sunny boy Len and Mick fell in love with – but at least he smiles. Then it’s gone. Barry holds out his hand. “Take care of yourself, Snart.”

There’s something in his voice which confuses Len – it’s desperate, and at the same time, despondent, like he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying. “No strings on me,” Len drawls, plastering a smirk on his face as he returns the handshake. 

Barry looks him in the eyes and then there’s a blur of lightning.

Len inhales sharply, screwing his eyes shut. There’s a flash behind his eyelids – blue, almost-but-not-quite Timestream blue, and a blinding, piercing explosion white. His eyes fly open. Barry is gone, and his right hand is tingling painfully. “No strings on me,” he tells himself again, and the words tug him in the same direction as the blue – it’s like déjà vu, but at the same time it’s not. Len turns and heads for the ship as fast as he can. Something is off, something is wrong; Barry is gone, and suddenly Len doesn’t want to deal with this alone. 

He bursts into Mick’s room and stops short.

Mick is passed out on his bunk, despite it being the middle of the day, ship time. He’s rigid, his arms by his side and his legs stretched straight, and that makes Len’s heart ache a little more than usual, because Mick Rory used to be the kind of guy who sprawled over the entire expanse of any bed, no matter how big, taking everything with him – sheets, pillows, Leonard Snart. Still, Len can’t bring himself to wake him from his much needed sleep. What is he going to say, really? That he’s just been back to 2017 to help the man they both hoped would one day bring them to life again save his fiancée? That said fiancée might not make it? That the Flash, the man they fell in love with, who saved Len and Lisa and was the indirect cause of this jaunt through space and time, is broken and desperate and had to be prevented from committing murder the way he made Len promise not to, in a deserted wood a lifetime ago, by Captain Cold of all people?

Not tonight. 

But he can’t leave Mick tonight either. Not when he saw the look in Iris West’s eyes. In Barry’s. You don’t let the people you love out of your reach. He can’t save Barry from what may come. But he can try to save Mick from what they did to each other.

He’s thrown off his jacket and boots and sliding onto the bunk before he can think twice about it. He presses himself against Mick’s side, shoulder to hip to ankle, the way he used to on dark juvie nights when it was cold and he was sleepless and Mick was a furnace. He still is, and Len would make a pun in his mind, but he’s too tired, suddenly. He threads his fingers over Mick’s immobile hands and stares at the ceiling and replays the haunted look in Barry’s eyes until he drifts into sleep.

He wakes up when Mick wraps both arms around him and turns on his side until they’re face to face. Mick stares at him, dry bushfire eyes, and something in Len shatters. Everything is chaos in his head – Barry Allen, the blue light after the lightning, the pain in his hand – and he feels his mouth crumple. He tries to turn away, but then Mick’s lips are at his forehead, strong and sure and gentle. Len’s chest begins to heave – his eyes are stinging. “Mick - ”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” rumbles Mick. He cradles Len’s head against his broad chest. “It’s two in the fucking am, Lenny. You’ve been in and out for ages. Get some real sleep.” 

Then it’s quiet again. A few tears seep into Mick’s shirt and he kisses the top of Len’s head where it’s tucked against him. Len feels the breath go out of him in an exhausted sigh. They’ll talk about it in the morning. They’ll talk about all of it. They’ll figure out what happened to the world, what happened to their love. But for now, Mick is here and Mick is holding him, and for now, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> my reactions to the latest episode of Flash swung between "LEN!LEN!LEN!" to weeping horribly as that last "no strings on me" tore out my unhealed heart all over again. So many feels. It's a miracle this is even coherent. (is it? I don't know. it's the first time i've done such a canon-dependant fic) I just miss Len so much. It's been a year and a week and it feels like yesterday.


End file.
